I am nothing

This reminds me of the chapter about "The Cosmic Joke"[1] from a Tibetan Buddhism book[2].

"[speaking about ego] We set up a background, a foundation from which we can go on and on to infinity. This is what is called samsara, the continuous vicious cycle of confirmation of existence. One confirmation needs another confirmation needs another…

The attempt to confirm our solidity is very painful. Constantly we find ourselves suddenly slipping off the edge of a floor which had appeared to extend endlessly. Then we must attempt to save ourselves from death by immediately building an extension to the floor in order to make it appear endless again. We think we are safe on our seemingly solid floor, but then we slip off again and have to build another extension. We do not realize that the whole process is unnecessary, that we do not need a floor to stand on, that we have been building all these floors on the ground level. There was never any danger of falling or need for support. In fact, our occupation of extending the floor to secure our ground is a big joke, the biggest joke of all, a cosmic joke."

[1] The chapter is fully available here: http://www3.telus.net/public/sarlo/Ytrungpa.htm.

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Freedom-Meditation-Shambhala-Libr...

"many of our weaknesses are actually strengths"

So when you say that you are nothing you mean that you have many strengths, flip the ladder again, this is a circular double helix

Ah, I see. I'm sorry, I thought the object was ego, but if it's thought in that abstract form, then that was my misunderstanding of your explanation. Indeed, you are correct in that analogy, to that extent.

If you truly believed and accepted that what you do in life does not matter then you will also believe that whether you live or not does not matter. And you will also believe that whether other people live or not does not matter. Your philosophy is dangerous because you do not make what you are trying to say clear.

Your message "look beyond meaning" I agree with. But it is clouded by and runs counter to most of what you wrote. to people without the context of your thoughts. It took effort to extract the message in order to ensure I was replying to what you wrote. My top paragraph was my initial reaction.

Note that even whether your decisions are yours or not does not matter. You can draw evidence from philosophical, to genetics or neurobiology to show why you may not be choosing. But so long as you make them in a way that you think leads to the best you it does not matter.

I think the essay is great but i think it applies more when you are already in a happy place where your happiness is confirmed by your own view of yourself.

Its a way to stay happy once your happy. For example, lets say your a poor entrepreneur, you tell yourself, if i can flip for 5m+ ill be happy cause i will never have to work again, i can help my parents i can do so and so. Your dream comes true and your startup gets acquired and you have that 5m+ in your bank account.

You now have a label, people expect certain things from you. Your happy but because of your new found label and because of peoples expectations of what that label means "in this cause a successful startup founder acquired by XXXX" it forces you to try and comply with that label which could possibly making you unhappy again. (maybe you dont like doing talks, maybe you dont like giving advice, maybe you dont like being criticised ... whatever it may be)

However if you dont care and dont classify yourself as "successful startup founder acquired by XXXX" then there is no reason to comply with what that means and because you achieved your personal goal of getting acquired for 5m+ ... you stay happy.

I think for people that are not there yet, its still kinda hard to apply "I am Nothing" to things you are still striving for or care about.

Well this is my interpretation of the essay .. :)